Science

The Largest Black Hole

From a distance, our galaxy would look like a flat spiral,some 100,000 light years across, with pockets of gas, clouds of dust, and about 400 billion stars rotating around the galaxys center. Thick dust and blinding starlight have long obscured our vision into the mysterious inner regions of the galactic center. And yet, the clues have been piling up, that something important, something strange is going on in there. Astronomers tracking stars in the center ofthe galaxy have found the best proof to date that black holes exist. 

When Will Time End?

Time is flying by on this busy, crowded planet, as life changes and evolves from second to second.

It now seems that our entire universe is living on borrowed time. How long it can survive depends on whether Stephen Hawking's theory checks out. What's certain is that we use the ticking of all kinds of clocks... from the decay of radioactive elements to the oscillation of light beams... to chart and measure a changing universe... to understand how it works and what drives it.

The Asteroid that Flattened Mars

Did Mars develop far enough  and stay that way long enough  for life to arise?  And, if so, does anything live now within Mars' dusty plains... beneath its ice caps... or maybe somewhere underground? It's not hard to believe that a great deal of water once flowed here. But where did all the water go?

Crashing into the Moon

Over the next decade the United States,Germany, England, Japan, India, China, Russia and even a few private companies have plans to send rockets to explore the moon.  They will map the lunar surface... search for clues to its origins... and find out what's there that humans can use to survive. The goal of these missions is to begin to fulfill a grand promise of the space age to send humans back to the moon and beyond, to permanently live and work in space.

Journeys from the Centre of the Earth

The architecture of ancient civilisations was largely dictated by types of rocks that were accessible to their builders. Iain Stewart reveals how geology influenced the Egyptians to build pyramids, the Greeks to build squares and the Romans to build perfect arches. It all comes down to how the rocks were formed millions of years ago. Filmed in Egypt, Italy and Greece. Geology has had a huge influence in shaping the history. Early cave painters scraped their colours from rocks on the earth’s surface.In this series he takes us on a tour of the Med and shows us how geology is behind everything from the rise and fall of civilizations to religion, architecture and food.

Cosmic Voyage

This computer generated journey through the universe tries to pinpoint the role of human beings cohabitating within its vastness, some of which had never before been visualized on film as well as a guided tour through the cosmos and solar system, also a look at the nature of black holes and exploding super-novas.